Bush Mackel

Well this is certainly becoming quite a productive day.

So far I’ve managed to get some laundry done, hang out with the family, AND upgrade Wordpress.

I will say though -

The admin environment for 2.5 is certainly going to take some getting used to but I’m sure the updates to the codebase will win me over soon enough.

You kids out there like 2.5?

Well it looks like Wordpress is acting a bit wonky on me and that often means it’s time to update.

So hopefully over the course of today I’ll have a minute to give my blog a little TLC. Oh, and one of the wonky things seems to be that I can’t reply to comments at the moment. Anyone else having problems like that?

I’ve once again hit a patch of pretty busy things for myself, and thankfully this time around it looks like those things are definitely of the positive sort.

And I’m beginning to come out of them now so I think it’s time to throw some updates up on here. Well actually… Now that I write that, I don’t know if I’m really coming out of them as much as I’m starting to see the proverbial light at the end of tunnel.

The big things on the hit list are of course the impending house purchase, finally finishing up that pesky website I’ve mentioned on here, Little Mac’s 1st birthday party, getting more business for my design company, and learning ColdFusion *bleh* at work. Why don’t we go in order of stress shall we?

Getting More Business for BWD 0 stress
Right now, my business Bethesda Web Design is doing just the right amount of business for me right now which isn’t too much. (#):) As I’ll point out in a hot minute, I’m putting the finishing touches of the company’s first real client site and I’ve had another person inquire about a new website too which I have a good feeling on. But probably the biggest thumbs up for the company in the past month was getting an old client back on board which means my hosting costs are no longer dragging me down to nearly the extent as they were before.

Finishing Up That Pesky Website 2 stress
This used to rank much higher on the stressful scale but I’ve recently put a lot of work into it addressing the harder parts of the service, and finishing up some nagging issues that I personally had a problem with. NOW the only thing I’m really waiting on is the “client” to get back to me with the rest of the text so I can put the seal of completeness on this one. And don’t worry, I’ll be talking a lot more about this project next week in a Postmordem of sorts.

Little Mac’s 1st Birthday Party 3 stress
I’ll admit it that from jump, I didn’t want to have a birthday party for the little guy. He’s not going to remember it and it’s just going to mean a lot of time commitment from me along with the whole catering thing *rolling eyes*. BUT the wife really wanted to have it so here I am, having to fire up the BarBQ (which NEVER goes smoothly) and having to figure out what food I’m going to make to feed all these people that are allegedly coming. bleh

Learning ColdFusion 4 stress
It should come as a surprise to no one that I’m more familiar with PHP for database manipulation than anything else. (See wordpress). But when I was originally propositioned at work to learn this technology I of course agreed and now I really wish I was doing something else. Of course it doesn’t help that I’m basically learning as I’m going through the joy that is the Internet Tutorial, but it really feels like ColdFusion is forcing me to learn a new scripting language that is just different enough from most standards that I have to stop and look everything up every 5 seconds. And as there’s basically only one other guy in the office with CF experience, I bet I’m gonna have to start doing this a lot more in the future.

Impending House Purchase ? stress
And finally on the pain train is the impending house purchase for which I have settlement on Monday. For some reason, it’s really not stressing me out as much as it should be. Maybe it’s the fact that I probably won’t be moving in ’till Sept or that I’m ok paying copious amounts in the way of bills. One thing is for certain though and that’s that I have very limited time to renew my real estate license if I’m going to be able to get a referral fee off the purchase. Busy weekend for sure coming up. (#):)

Anyone out there doing anything of interest?

You know, when you’ve been out of the blogging game for as long as I have - You can’t even figure out what you’re going to title your posts.

I’m SO sorry that I have basically dropped off the face of the blogging world but lately I haven’t been able to find anytime to write a half way decent post. (See this one for example). And because I haven’t been able to write anything half way decent, I’ve just kinda…

Stopped writing. (#):(

Why I’m Not Writing
I’ve been thinking about this one a lot and while there are a ton of reasons, I think the biggest one is that I’d like to think that my posts have always been of pretty good quality. (Or so I’d like to believe anyway). I know I’ve said it before, but when I write posts, I tend to have my posts blocked out for the entire week and when I start one I’ll write a draft, revise it sometime later and then finally eventually post it with some pictures when I think it’s pretty good.

With how my time has been lately, I just don’t have the time to do that, and at the beginning I just thought it’d be ok because I’d eventually find the time to post some quality stuff. But I haven’t. And then after that I didn’t want to just occasionally pop on to the blogosphere with a random post here and there I mean, usually I’m writing 5 posts a week. That’s what I’m supposed to do right?

Why is this Blog Here?
The easiest and truest answer is that I like talking to people about my common interests. But in its current form, Bush Mackel exists to discuss technology, video games, blogging etc… Now that doesn’t mean that the “truest answer” and the “current form” of the site are contradictions of each other but somewhere along the way I started blogging with a very professional mindset. Which is GREAT don’t get me wrong, but at the same time I think I started imposing a lot of standards on this place which I tried to adhere too. The problem with it now is that I don’t honestly believe I can still blog regularly and live up to these standards.

So What Do I Do?
I don’t know. I miss blogging. I want to blog. But I don’t know that I have the time TO blog anymore, at least not in the capacity that I was. And a lot of that DOES have to do with my job which is very different than the one I had before it. This job pretty much takes up all of my time and the people here are a lot more friendly than at my last so there’s always someone over my shoulder which means it is a STRUGGLE to try and blog from work.

Plus, it doesn’t help that outside of having to show up and the 45 minute commute on both ends, I really don’t mind my job. It pays very well, the people are good and the projects are interesting. Now if my blog were making enough for me to live on, we obviously wouldn’t be having this conversation but the truth of the matter is that it is not and I don’t know that it would anytime soon w/o me spending a LOT of time on it.

Conclusion?
If you’re looking for a conclusion to this, you’ll have to look elsewhere because I don’t have it. I remember when I brought all this up in the past, someone said they understood me taking sometime away from my blog because “work comes first”. That statement stuck with me because if you get to know me, you’d understand that that statement really bothers me. Well, let me say this - Work coming first over my blog wouldn’t bother me. My 9-5 over my blog does. I could go on and on on this point but if you’ve read this blog for a while, you probably understand what I’m saying. Thankfully, even though I haven’t been working on my blog I have been working on my design company and I think it’s coming along nicely. Hopefully soon I’ll have my first client too.

But yeah, I just don’t know what’s going to happen to this blog. I’m sure it will continue but I’m not sure when and I’m not sure how. It’s killing me that I can’t find the time to update it, but I don’t know that I can find the time. I just don’t know.

Yikes this has been a busy week!

My apologies that I haven’t gotten any posts up lately, but I’ve kinda taken a step back from blogging this week so I could put some serious effort into getting my web design project off the ground.

Don’t be misled though by my use of the word “project”. I really should call refer to it as my business since well…

It literally is that.

I’ll of course give some more information on the whole process when I can, but I will say that over the past two weeks or so, I was kinda inspired by NBC’s The Apprentice to redesign its homepage, mission statement (as it were) and also my plan of attack (marketing) on the whole thing.

And while I absolutely hate to have had to backoff blogging, there’s really only so much I can do in a week with the new job and unfortunately, I really had to make the web design stuff a priority. It’s one of those things (and I think I’ve mentioned this before) where the initial ramp up takes a lot of effort but after that, the whole thing isn’t too bad. In my case, I pretty much started from scratch this past week – Redesigning the website, complicating my design, and just making a lot of work for myself.

But in any event, things are getting done that need to get done so I’m obviously very happy about that, and hopefully all this work I’m putting into the business will pay off really soon. Thanks for always being patient with me guys!

Remember when I wrote the post “A Bit Sick at the Moment?”?

Well…

I wasn’t even halfway into it at that point so I’m really glad I took it upon myself to write a little update. Today it definitely seems like I’m on the mend after spending some quality face time with Mr. T on Saturday. (Mr. T = Mr. Toilet)

So thanks for the warm wishes everyone and I’m sorry I couldn’t respond to all your msgs ’cause I really felt awful miserable.

BUT YESTERDAY
I felt pretty good. Well, at least compared to Saturday when I was crawling around on all fours for a little bit. SO GOOD in fact that I took a stroll around the neighborhood with el familia and sometime during the walk we came upon a basketball court with kids shooting around. And in this situation there was only one thing to do : Me and a friend who was visiting challenged the two to a friendly game of two on two. Quickly that became two on 6 six but we still destroyed them. Say what you will but when they cried, “Come on guys! It’s two on six!!!” - Well, that’s just gotta make you feel good!

So Now That I’m Back…
It looks like there are several things that I need to get to including my 3rd Blog Anniversary Contest and awarding the winner of the 2nd and giving out that prize! And aside from all of THAT, plenty of other stuff was going on in the world including the demise of HD DVD, XNA games on XBL, my discovery of GetVMail and my work on other projects most notable of which is LSO. So hopefully this week I’ll get a second to talk about all that and of course be able to catch up with all you crazy kids out there in Blog Land.

Oh, and Mike - We may have to start a permanent NyQuil IV on you! Get better soon buddy! (#):)

Hey sorry about the lack of posts guys, I managed to catch a nice little bug from my family and it’s taking a bit of a toll on me. I’m really hoping to get it out of my system tonight so expect things to get back to normal manana.

Sucks that I’m not posting at the moment too with all the exciting things going on!

But don’t worry, I’ll be back with THAT stuff and contest news probably starting tomorrow.

Can you wait? I know I can’t!

Boy oh boy did that power outage last night mess me up in regards to posting.

I had planned to get home, catch up on e-mails, write some posts and continue to fight the good fight.

But as you know, that didn’t exactly happen when MY source of power, electricity, was ripped from my life leaving me w/o a dream in the world.

It was so funny… At one point last night, I just grabbed my laptop and started to slink into my dark family room when my wife said, “Did I do something?” I replied, “No… I just don’t have a reason to go on.” ha ha I can really be over the top sometimes but seriously! - I had planned to do my posts, write e-mails, work on my sites, finish Zuma… It RUINED my night AND my post for today. So instead of anything useful, I’ll just give you an update of what’s crackalackin’ on my side of the street.

Video Games
As previously stated, I still need to finish Zuma Deluxe. That game is still a blast and I’d feel like less of a person if I never got those achievements for it. And after that, I have to go back to Rock Band and continue to work on that one.

Web Stuff
Well this site seems to be going pretty well for the moment, so I’ve finally turned my attention back towards LSO and going forth what that project. Don’t worry, details of that will be forth coming. Aside from that, I’ve also gotten some ppl who are interested in me doing some web work for them, so I really should be working hard this weekend to get that stuff done or at least progress talks with those persons.

Everything Else
I guess the only other things worthy of mention are the contests on here. Remember: The first contest wraps up manana, and tomorrow I’ll also be revealing who won the secret contest from yesterday and what exactly those people won! BOOYAKA!

One of the great things about having a site like this is when you’re in unchartered waters, you can throw yourself upon the helpfulness of your community!

If you couldn’t tell, I need some contest help from all of you out there in blog land… This site is coming up on its 1 year anniversary next week and to celebrate, I’m definitely having a contest. (wahoo!)

The problem is, I’ve never really run a contest before.

How Do You Go About Marketing a Contest?
So the first thing I really need help with is how to market this bad boy. Obviously when you have a contest, one of the big things you try and do is bring in new readers. And common sense says that if potential new readers don’t know about your contest, they’re not going to become new readers because they’ll never find your site.

Now I already know that one of the contest conditions is - “If you blog about the contest I’m going to give you better odds to win it”, but I need to know of places that specifically promote blog contests that I can get my little site onto. I could search into this info myself, but why waste the time when I’m sure SOMEONE out there has already talked about it on their site ad nauseum. (So especially if you have a post about it, please feel free to throw in the link on your comment).

What Do You Kids Like Nowadays?
By far this is more interesting part of my plea, but I’m asking you guys for some ideas as what you’d like to win! I already have in my head a few things that I think would make great prizes, but I know you can probably offer up some stuff that I haven’t thought of yet. And while there’s no guarantees that I’ll follow your suggestions (especially if it’s way expensive) - I’ll at least ENTERTAIN the thoughts. (#):)

Thanks everyone!

Oh, and I updated the blog earnings report with more ppl’s figures - So make sure you check it out!

Yesterday was a big day for me.

I was offered a new job yesterday (that I’m very excited to accept), I got two cavities filled (I’m not sure where those came from) and I got two special items in the mail.

The first was a package sitting on top of one of the cars in the driveway - A late XMas present from my brother-in-law and girlfriend, a mechanical icing bag. You know - So I can make some awesome looking cakes! (Yes I like to bake, WHAT OF IT?)

The second item was this…

That’s right, I finally did it. My first AdSense check came. It only took me about a year to earn it but I really couldn’t be happier. It’s funny too - I told my family and they couldn’t care less. I guess this kind of stuff just doesn’t mean a lot to some people but it means a lot to me ’cause I really work hard at all this stuff. Sure, I don’t know how much of a victory a $100 check is once a year but we all gotta start somewhere so I’m putting this one up in the W column. (#):)

So look - If you’re struggling to get your first check, just keep at it. Keep trying, keep learning, and if you stick with it, you’ll make it.